Venus Express Observations of Electromagnetic Waves at the Bow Shock and Magnetosheath

Abstract:

The interaction between the solar wind and the ionosphere of Venus forms an induced magnetosphere around the planet, which consists of regions near the planet and in its wake where magnetic pressure dominates the other pressure contributions. This induced magnetosphere and the ionosphere of Venus act as a barrier to the solar wind, leading to a bow shock with standoff distance very close the planet. Upstream of the bow shock, there is abundant wave activity generated by the shock or by the back-streaming ions and electrons from the shock. Previous studies found upstream waves with 1 Hz or lower frequencies, but Venus Express occasionally provides 128 Hz data that cover the regions up to the bow shock and allow us the search for and analyze higher frequency waves. Inside the magnetosheath and at the Venus ionopause, there are lightning-associated whistler waves detected from the 128 Hz data, which generally propagate along the magnetic field lines. Besides, there is another type of waves at such high frequencies which propagate quasi-perpendicular to the magnetic field and strongly associated with current sheets near the ionopause. They either occur at the center of a sharp current, or at the edge of a current. These waves may be generated from the free energy of currents at the ionopause and could lead to dissipation of those currents. In this paper, we perform statistical studies on the current-associated waves and examine their effects on current dissipation and on plasma heating. We examine waves at the bow shock in this higher frequency range.